Colonoscopy Blues or All Pooped Out

Well, dear Reader, we are going to undertake a journey in this blog that is less than glamorous, way less!

My doctor informed me that it was time for me to have a colonoscopy. Little did I know what ancient history behavior the preparation for this procedure would stimulate.

For those of you who are young & innocent enough to not know what the procedure is, let me explain as delicately as possible. You must drink way more Gatorade than you would ever dream of drinking in the same day, mixed with a laxative solution after taking 4 laxative pills. During this time you need to stay home, close to your indoor home plumbing while emptying the contents of your internal body plumbing. This is all done to prepare for smooth sailing the following day for your gastroenterologist who will be sending a little camera up into your colon to make sure everything is OK in there.

Amazingly the above described stuff was the easy part for me. The problem came with the directions that said that I was not to ingest anything but clear liquids the day before the colonoscopy. It also mentioned that it would be best to eat lightly the day before that.

You must understand that in my earlier premindfuleating days, I was a black vs. white, all vs. nothing, perfectly on a diet vs. perfectly off a diet person. So, like a good little colonoscopy patient-to-be, I decided to eat very, very lightly starting 2 days before the procedure.

So, I woke up on the actual day of clear liquid only diet preparation HUNGRY!! The word "diet" makes me hungry. The thought of clear liquids makes me hungry. Put them together & I am very, very HUNGRY!!!! The plan was for Sid and me to pick my mom up for lunch before it was time for me to begin the Gatorade cleanse. That had sounded fine to me a week earlier when I agreed to it, back when I was still sane.

Sanity flew out the window when I began to walk into the restaurant. As I smelled the incredibly fragrant smells & saw the dishes piled high with breathtakingly delicious items, I felt a cloud of melancholy descend down through my body at the same time that my mouth began to water. When our order came to the table, my tall glass of apple juice was unable to hold it's own against Sid's & Mom's meals. I thought I was going to swoon when the waitress set a plate with the most perfectly toasted English muffin I had ever seen, slathered in butter, one of my very most favorite things, down between Sid & me. It took every ounce of strength I could muster to keep from grabbing that muffin and stuffing it into my mouth! Over and over I had that strong urge to grab and stuff, grab and stuff!

I felt so incredibly sorry for myself. It was so unfair, to be starving in a sea of abundant food. Why could everybody else be eating whatever they wanted? What had I ever done to deserve this? Poor Cheryl.

It dawned on me that this was how I had lived years and years of my life. I would be adhering perfectly to the latest diet fad and then a moment would come where that same melancholy would come over me as I felt so sad and so pathetic. That was followed by a compensatory bout of overeating that would totally undo all of my perfect dieting.

This time I just became mindful of what I was feeling, the urges I had, the hopeless thoughts that marched through my mind. It was all so familiar.

I am proud to report that I did not steal anybody's food, nor did I throw a fit. I adhered to the doctor's orders. I would like to think that he was impressed at how clean my plumbing was. I was given color photos of said plumbing and, dear Reader, I am sure you will be pleased to see that I have resisted the urge to post them here or anywhere else, for that matter, although everything was sparkling clean.

I'm back to a life of mindfully eating what I want, stopping when I'm satisfied and being grateful to be free to do so.

Letting My Heart Be Touched

Geez, I haven't been here for a while. I apologize. Sometimes when I have the most inspired thoughts, I'm in the shower or driving the car & can't really type those thoughts down. Then I lose the inspiration.

But, here I am today & now in this present moment.

As I have tried to make sense of my life, I have learned many things and have found many wonderful teachers. Some of them are my clients.

Many years ago I began to operate from my shoulders up. I learned to turn off my body feelings in response to some painful whippings with a big black leather belt with a large silver buckle. I thought I was quite clever to be able to go to the dentist and never need any novacaine. I could just stare at the corner of the room & block out any sensations of pain. I used this talent in many ways long after the whippings were over.

I imagine that food became a solace for me, another way to turn off uncomfortable feelings of an emotional nature. I guess it was was my emotional novacaine.

One of the things that I discovered in my relections about what was not working in my life was that in many ways I was totally numb. Spring would come & I couldn't really let myself feel much about it. I graduated from graduate school & didn't really have any feelings about it the way that other students did. I went home after finishing my final final exam & pulled weeds. I was sometimes asking myself, "Is this all there is?", "What's the point?"

When I began a mindfulness practice, I began to meditate. I was sitting still with myself. There was nothing to do - except be quietly with me. I journaled about my experience with mindfulness & very slowly began to see that I was very good at talking to myself about everything in my life, but I never felt much of anything about anything.

Now, I have to hasten to add that the major exceptions to this were my children. They brought me feelings of wonder & tenderness & love in a vibrant way. I experienced many wonderful feelings by observing them & seeing the world through their eyes. But, children have a way of growing up & then I was back to my numbed out self.

As I developed mindfulness skills, I was intrigued by the idea of looking at a flower without talking to myself about the flower - just taking in the essence of the flower. At first I thought it was impossible. Then, little by little, magic began to happen in my heart. All of my descriptions of the color, size, name of the flower died away. I was no longer comparing this flower to other flowers. It was just this flower and me. I started to relax the area around my heart as I breathed slowly & then the flower "touched" my heart, emotionally. It was so wonderful. I felt alive - for the first time in a long time. It was as if the flower began to glow with its essence and I began to resonate with that.

This process has expanded unbelievably over the years. I try to bring mindfulness to more & more aspects of my life. If I'm getting a little irritated at Sid, I "wake up" & remember to look at his essence & suddenly I am filled with love & respect for who he really is. Without my saying a word, he knows & responds positively to me.

I am moving to a new office building 2 blocks from where I currently work May 1. I just went over there to check it out. There are rose bushes right outside my window. Little buds are bursting out all over the bushes. I walked out into the wonderful outdoor courtyard which will be a perfect meditation walkway. There was a dogwood tree in full bloom overhead. It took my breath away. I have found that those times when nature takes my breath away, I need to really take in the beauty to warm me on the inside the way my grandchildren so naturally do.

At my age I realize how short life is. I want to drink in every last part of it. (As I wrote that I was aware that I also am careful about what I expose myself to. I don't expose myself to violence or other toxic things). I take food into my body that I really enjoy. I see it. I taste it. I feel its presence in me as I swallow it.

There is so much to experience and to feel. I am grateful that I no longer am numb.